Even something as simple as the choice of the name “OS/2” showed how IBM missed the significance of the horizontal industry. The idea of OS/2, a new personal computer operating system, was introduced in 1987 at the same time as a new line of IBM personal computers called the “PS/2.” Even though it wasn’t necessarily the case, the inference was that OS/2 worked only on PS/2 computers. That perception alone might have been enough to limit the success of OS/2, since the majority of personal computers were made by IBM’s competitors, not by IBM itself.
